TV News LIES

Haitham Rashaidh was among the last to leave his home near Ein al-Auja, a natural spring and waterfall north of Jericho in the occupied West Bank. 

His family packed up their tents and heaped all their belongings onto a tractor, and then began the two-hour journey across difficult terrain towards al-Balqa, a sparsely populated area of the Jordan Valley, where they set up camp alongside their displaced neighbours.

Leaving Ein al-Auja felt like losing a part of themselves, Rashaidh explained mournfully. Water once flowed here in a torrent, estimated at thousands of cubic metres daily - yet today, the ground is parched, the spring that once supported a Bedouin community of more than 100 families reduced to a trickle.

Palestinians used to treasure Ein al-Auja as an oasis of calm in a region under siege. But Israel’s diversion of water, alongside continuing settler attacks, ultimately made life in the community untenable.

“We did not leave the first time they tried to push us out,” Rashaidh told Middle East Eye. “We came back, rebuilt what we could, and tried to continue our lives.

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Home demolitions by Israeli forces; attacks on healthcare infrastructure, homes, and schools; mass displacement of Palestinians; and the expansion of illegal settlements across the West Bank have brought the occupied Palestinian territory to “the breaking point,” said a top humanitarian official at the United Nations Security Council Tuesday, calling for a “coordinated international effort” to end the violent Israeli occupation.

At a meeting on the situation in the territory, Ramiz Alakbarov, the UN special coordinator for the Middle East peace process, addressed the council as families in the town of Qusra, northern Nablus, were facing days of attacks by Israeli settlers.

That violence exemplified what the Israeli human rights group B’Tselem called an escalating “ethnic cleansing” operation that Israel’s military allows.

As B’Tselem said Wednesday, settlers had established an illegal outpost in the yards of two Palestinian families’ homes, “forcing the families out and taking over their homes,” and the US-backed Israel Defense Forces (IDF) had done nothing to protect the Palestinian residents.

“Israeli ethnic cleansing in the West Bank is accelerating and expanding in full view of everyone,” Yuli Novak, president of B’Tselem, told Anadolu Agency, adding that the settlers’ seizure of the Palestinian homes was “not an isolated incident.”

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Since Andy Burnham became prime minister, there has been a serious shift in approach to British foreign policy.

But so far none of it has been made public, beyond a change in the rhetoric of government ministers.

This is set to change after parliament's summer recess.

The government is poised to announce a raft of new policies in September, multiple Whitehall and civil society sources told Middle East Eye.

These policies are still under discussion, but are set to include a ban on goods from illegal Israeli settlements.

Sources said discussions are underway in the Foreign Office over whether the measures will involve legal sanctions for companies and organisations that have business or other links with settlements in occupied Palestinian territories.

This comes as the Charity Commission, the UK's charity regulator, is investigating several British charities accused of sending money to settlements.

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A body representing Palestinian citizens of Israel has condemned what it called an “obsessive campaign of incitement” by Israeli ministers against Arab medical staff in recent days.

The High Follow-Up Committee for Arab Citizens of Israel was referring to comments by Defence Minister Israel Katz and National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir, who called for an investigation into allegations that Arab medical workers mistreated wounded Israeli soldiers.

The claims were made by relatives of a soldier wounded in Lebanon and treated at Rambam Health Care Campus in Haifa.

Yehoshua Shani, chairman of a forum that opposes the Gaza ceasefire and supports continuing the war, claimed his nephew was mistreated by Arab staff at the hospital.

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Four US-based rights groups sued the Trump administration on Tuesday for its sanctions on the International Criminal Court (ICC).

In a statement, the American Friends Service Committee, the Center for Constitutional Rights, Human Rights Watch, and the Open Society Institute called the sanctions "blatantly illegal". 

They said they are being forced "to curtail a wide range of human rights and legal work in violation of... First and Fifth Amendment rights under the US Constitution and under the Religious Freedom Restoration Act", given that anyone who appears to associate with ICC cases or officials could now face legal repercussions.

Just days after he assumed power in late January 2025, US President Donald Trump signed an executive order to sanction the ICC over its investigations into top Israeli officials.

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RAMALLAH: Israeli settlers, under the protection of Israeli occupation forces, have attacked the village of Al-Mughayyir, northeast of Ramallah.

Amin Abu Aliya, the head of the Al-Mughayyir Village Council, said that settlers attacked Palestinian farmers in the eastern plain area and local residents confronted the attackers.

Abu Aliya added that Israeli forces entered the village to provide protection for the settlers and detained two young men, Alaa and Hani Abu Aliya.

The forces also fired tear gas, with no injuries reported.

Al-Mughayyir, along with surrounding villages and towns northeast of Ramallah, has been subjected to continued attacks by colonists, alongside ongoing raids by Israeli occupation forces.

According to the Wall and Settlement Resistance Commission, Israeli forces and settlers carried out 2,256 attacks against Palestinians, their lands and property during July. Israeli forces carried out 1,458 of the attacks, while settlers carried out 798.

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